Edward Smigly-Rydz

Edward Smigly-Rydz (11 March 1886-2 December 1941) was a Marshal of Poland and General Inspector of the Armed Forces from 1935 to 1939. He was Poland's leader during the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in World War II, and died in occupied Poland in 1941.

Biography
Edward Smigly-Rydz was born on 11 March 1886 in Lapszyn, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Lapshin, Ukraine). From 1910 to 1917 he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and fought in Josef Pilsudski's Polish 1st Brigade, taking part in battles with the Russian Empire to the south of the Vistula River. In 1918 he became Minister of War of newly-independent Poland and commanded the Central Front of the Polish Army during the Polish-Soviet War, fighting in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw. After Pilsudski's death in 1935 he became commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and held the post until 1939, when Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Smigly-Rydz failed to be an effective commander and the Polish forces collapsed. He died of heart failure at the age of 55 in 1941 while organizing resistance against the Nazi General Government in Warsaw.